ANLCA Chieftain Decries High Rate Of Abandoned Vehicles At The Terminals

ANLCA Chieftain Decries High Rate Of Abandoned Vehicles At The Terminals

Posted: 06 May, 2019 02:46:03schedule

A chieftain of the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA); Mr Biola Suleiman has decried high rate of abandoned imported used vehicles at different terminals in the country.

Biola who said this last week in a chat with Shipping Position Daily also expressed disappointment with the present administration, even though he acknowledged that the volume of vehicles importation has increased.

He called on the President Muhammad Buhari-led federal administration to review the automotive policy with the view of bringing import duty down to 10% from 30%.

“Well the volume is increasing every day, but when you go to the ports you will see a lot of abandoned vehicles in the terminal because of the high duties paid by importers. You know this present administration, we the customs brokers are so disappointed with the administration.

Because the Vice President, Prof Yemi Osibanjo came to our secretariat and campaigned to us that they will reverse back the 30% duty imposed on us during the last administration in 2014”

“The 30% policy started in 2014 which President Buhari assured us that they will reverse it, but as I am talking to you today it has not yet been reversed it is still there, we still pay 30% on used vehicles which is too high. The way forward is very simple; I have been in this business for 29years. First, this is what I said earlier the duty rate should be reduced from 30% to 10 or 20% respectively” he said.

The former ANLCA image maker also advised the government to grant waiver to importers of these vehicles instead of auctioning the vehicles.

“Now that the government is planning to auction; the owner of the vehicle is losing, the terminal operator will be losing because nobody will pay demurrage. They will only collect the 5% of the fee paid to the federal government to the terminal operators; you can see the extent of the damages there. And the person that will buy the vehicles will not know the value because they didn’t travel outside there to buy the vehicles. I think what the government should do now to help the revenue and the importer is to give the importers concession. The owners of all these overtime vehicles should be given a sort of waiver, for both the duty and demurrage” he concluded.